Last week after my column about the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais, one of the comments to the online edition summed up one of the biggest problems we face in politics today.

"The only fair option would be to stop gerrymandering, and divide states as evenly as possible," a commenter wrote. "That is what the Supreme Court ruling should have been."

The commenter is a frequent one, and unfortunately, I'm afraid, spoke for a lot of people who fail to grasp the critical concept of our three branches of government, the separation of powers and federalism.

The Supreme Court isn't supposed to make national laws. That power is reserved exclusively to the Congress. Gerrymandering is a state issue, and each state legislature gets to make its own laws about how congressional district lines are drawn up.

People who think the Supreme Court should just rule to make something fair, regardless of whether an issue exists in the Constitution, might also mistakenly think gerrymandering is something recent.

It might surprise them to learn that the first gerrymandering officially occurred in 1812, more than 55 years before the 15th Amendment was ratified, which constitutionally prohibited the denial of the right to vote due to race, and 153 years before the Voting Rights Act.

It was begun, ignobly, by the Democratic-Republican party (ideological........

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